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EFF in the News

EFF in the News

Jennifer Lynch, from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told New Scientist that it could erode the sense of freedom provided by the internet. “These tools that mine open source data, and presumably store it for a very long time, do away with that kind of privacy. I worry about the effect of that on free speech in the US,” she said.

Julie Samuels, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization founded in 1990 to confront issues related to free speech, privacy, and consumer rights, commented, "It's not just Hollywood versus the tech community; it's Hollywood versus Internet users, which is crazy, because Internet users could be everybody, including a lot of young tech-savvy voters."

However, as you can see below, the court isn't buying it (not one bit). Not only does the court order him to pay attorneys' fees to Public Citizen and EFF (basically the $22,000 the lawyers asked for, though the court gets there through very slightly different math), but even more interestingly, the court also finds Stone in contempt and is requiring that he pay $500 per day until he pays the attorneys' fees owed...

The EFF is soliciting people to speak up in favor of the jailbreaking exemption, as is the Software Freedom Law Center. Any comments regarding the jailbreaking provisions are due in to the U.S. Copyright Office by 5 p.m. eastern time Feb. 10.

"ACTA contains new potential obligations for Internet intermediaries, requiring them to police the Internet and their users, which in turn pose significant concerns for citizens' privacy, freedom of expression, and fair use rights," Eva Galperin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote in a blog post last fall.

The EFF doesn't want this to happen, which is why it's decided to launch a campaign dedicated to the jailbreaking cause. With this initiative, the EFF is hoping to convince the Copyright Office to renew its exemptions and expand them to a wider range of devices, including tablets and video game consoles.

Hughillustration sez, "Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, video artists who break the encryption on a DVD or sample online steaming videos could face legal threats - even if the video they create is considered fair use. We think that's nuts. Kirby Ferguson, creator of Everything is a Remix, is standing with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in fighting for the right to create remix videos. Please sign Kirby's letter below and stand up for the rights of video artists."

Last year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation published a report analyzing the FBI's use of National Security Letters from 2001 to 2008, concluding that the FBI might have violated the law as many as 40,000 times during that period. In many cases the companies involved -- including phone companies, Internet service providers, financial institutions, and credit agencies -- "contributed in some way to the FBI's unauthorized receipt of personal information."